“We’re gonna do this right. Take it slow. Build the trust. Figure it out. And do it smart. You with me, Livvie?”

I tipped my head so my lips were at his throat but I didn’t open my eyes when I whispered fervently, “He can’t know. It isn’t about me. But he can’t know. I can’t go through it again. Not it happening to me. Watching.”

Nick slid his arm up my spine and curled it around the back of my neck.

“Leary,” he said quietly.

I pressed my lips deeper into his throat, murmuring, “He can’t know.”

“He won’t know, honey.”

“He can’t know,” I repeated.

“He won’t touch me.”

“He can’t know.”

“Shh,” he shushed me, his hand at my neck shifting to sift through my hair.

It took a while but eventually it worked. I turned my head so my cheek was to his throat and relaxed in his arms.

“I need to keep you safe, Sebring,” I whispered.

“I’m safe, Livvie.”

“You need to let me keep you safe.”

“If that means letting you go, that’s not gonna happen.”

I sighed and said, “They watch my house.”

“Okay,” he replied slowly.

“They have a tracker on my car.”

I felt his body grow taut.

“Fuck,” he clipped. “Do you—?”

“I take it off before coming here.”

“Goddammit,” he muttered, then, “Lavish cage,” but said no more.

That was when I took a chance and gave him some more of me.

“They don’t know about the club. When I go, Harry drives me.”

“Harry?”

“A leftover from another time. He’s loyal to me. He also knows the drill. He’s the one who showed me how to find a tracker on my car and remove it without them knowing.”

“Right.”

Nick again said no more and I didn’t either. I just lay in his arms trying to get back that feeling of just Nick and me.

But the fear kept invading.

Nick felt it.

“He’s not gonna hurt me and he’s sure as fuck is not gonna hurt you, Olivia. You got no reason to trust that but we work this out, we build it, you’ll eventually get there with me.”

The fear started choking me and to release some of it, I shared, “He won’t let me go easy.”

“I don’t give a fuck how hard it is on him.”

For some reason, I expected there to be more.

There wasn’t.

That was it. Simple.

To Nick, it was a foregone conclusion.

No, not even that.

To Nick, it was done.

I was Vincent Shade’s no longer.

I belonged to Nick Sebring.

With some surprise, on that simple thought, I felt the tension ebb from me.

He felt it too.

“Now, babe, this time answer me. Have you eaten? Because I haven’t and I’m fuckin’ starving.”